


Hiraeth

by Yuripaws



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Space, Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Outer Space, Space Deity, Stranded, YOI Space Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 03:19:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13872012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuripaws/pseuds/Yuripaws
Summary: -- Homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, or for a home which may have never been.Yuuri calls out for home. Something answers.





	Hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet I wrote for Yuri on Ice Space Week! I needed some warm up drabbles to write between working on the new chapters of my WIPs, so I've been doing these and posting them on Tumblr/Twitter.
> 
> Apologies in advance for how nonsensical/inaccurate it is (better to think of it as fantasy than sci-fi, haha). I had fun with it at least ^^

> _1\. nebulae - vague, conceptual, dreamlike. full of potential and what might be, swirling with the hopes and dreams of stars yet to be born._

He awakens from dreams like tendrils of stardust, wispy and slipping through his grasping fingers, to find that not much has changed.

Beyond thick glass panes lie the same pillars of dust, the same masses of swirling gaseous clouds. Faint pinpricks of light dance within them, teasing and flitting in and out of view. As mesmerizing as they are, he needs to focus, needs to think. He’s lost track of his trek, and the dazzling lights of his control panel blink uselessly at him, telling him nothing. Taunting him. They know where the ship is headed, but Yuuri does not.

He can’t remember anything, can’t recall how long he’s been here. Far too long, maybe. Waiting.

For what?

‘Escape’ is the only word that comes to mind when he tries to remember where he’s come from, or who he was, or why he’s here. To dwell on these things is to teeter precariously at the edge of something steep, to hold something fragile and dangle it over the precipice of his sanity. And so he withdraws, frowning down at the control panel once more.

He reaches out to tap a button, knowing that nothing will happen. A flash of something in the nebula catches his eye, makes his heart leap to his throat, but he soon finds that not much has changed.

The same pillars of dust and masses of swirling gaseous clouds, and the same faint stars being birthed into twinkling existence around him, plucked from nowhere as suddenly and as mysteriously as he’d been snatched from his own life, from a place he can barely remember, can barely call home.

This ship is now home, but where it takes him, Yuuri doesn’t know.

And so he waits.

> _2\. stars - burning bright, beautiful, and bold. they are young, they are carefree, they burn and light up the night and bring warmth and life._

Light ought to bring warmth, but he’s so cold. There isn’t anything wrong with the controlled temperature of the ship, and he’s adequately clothed, but he shivers, teeth on edge as he stares up longingly at twinkling stars. They’re bright tonight, as they have been every night -- though every moment has been night since he left. He wishes he could remember real nights, warm nights, and an even warmer star.

Warm like home? Steam, curling and playful, and heat lapping at his aches and worries. So familiar.

He can feel it if he concentrates hard enough, carefully toeing the line between dreaming and waking -- someplace warm, the combination of chill wind and hot water lulling him, soothing his skin and mind beneath the night sky.

A sky filled with stars so impossibly far away, yet they had felt closer to him than they do now, drifting in this void.

Sudden flash of light at the corner of his vision. A shooting star?

A shooting star isn’t even really a star, he tells himself firmly, rubbing at his weary eyes. But in the wide expanse of the unknown, who can tell? If only he could remember what he’s seen and why he’s here.

Something flashes again, something bright and silver that streaks by the ship’s path so quickly that Yuuri’s sure he must have hallucinated it. He should check the oxygen levels in the cabin, make a note to get more sleep, try to do anything but huddle in the pilot’s chair and mourn the loss of a home he isn’t sure he’s ever even known.

Silver. So bright and silver. Yuuri hopes he’ll see the shooting star again. He hopes he’ll remember it, because all of a sudden he’s certain that he’s seen it before.

When he dreams, he almost feels warm..

> _3\. galaxies - communities of stars, drifting through the sky together. perhaps it is humbling to be part of something larger. perhaps it is lonely._

It’s lonely.

This isn’t the first time Yuuri’s had that thought. Not the first time he’s felt panic rise like bile at the back of his throat, threatening to choke him. He has to press his lips together each time he feels it coming -- although the scream building in his lungs burns, he knows that once he starts, he won’t be able to stop.

He doesn’t know which galaxy he’s in, or if it’s one he’s ever charted before. Nothing seems familiar, like anything he’s ever seen or read. No simulation has ever prepared him to be lost among a community of stars quite like this one.

His training. Does he remember it? He closes his eyes and tries to picture something, anything, but comes up blank. Any duty or action done aboard the ship is pure muscle memory, his brain on autopilot as surely as the ship itself is.

Eyes flutter open once more to stare out dully at an expanse of sky that hasn’t changed. Has anything changed? He can’t remember what it had looked like yesterday. Or if there had even been a yesterday. How long has he been here? He tries to think, but darkness falls without warning.

He must be asleep again. It comes suddenly sometimes, when his body gives in and slumps, and his battered mind thrums with dreams and memories that slip through his fingers when he awakens. He dreams of faces, kind and round and smiling at him. They’ve always been so proud of him. He wants to thank them, but he can’t remember who they are.

_Yuuri._

Everything melts, washed away gently by a tide of white, and it’s so bright now that he has to close his eyes, has to duck his head in the presence of something so blinding. Silvery and glittering, it speaks his name again, so near that he can feel its warmth, its simmering heat. Heat he feels against his skin, caressing his cheeks, pressing down on his lower lip. It speaks his name.

_Yuuri._

He awakens, cold and alone, and stares up at distant stars. One of them is his, he’s certain, and it visits him in his dreams.

> _4\. the empty spaces in-between - cosmic latte or endless void, either way the emptiness is far more vast than the pinpricks that punctuate it. what drifts in the dark?_

The ship must have jumped on its own while Yuuri slept, because a sickening lurch grabs hold of his insides and tugs hard, robbing him of breath and leaving him gasping and awake and most certainly not where he once was.

Where are the stars?

There, in the far distance. One lonely star. Maybe a second, maybe a third. Pinpricks in an endless sea of dark -- a black so deep that it pulls at him, makes him feel ill. He can’t tell what’s out there, and at this point, he doesn’t particularly want to.

Not that it matters what he wants. This ship has taken him wherever the hell its coordinated have locked onto, and no amount of blind panic will change its course. He tries to settle in his chair and think, eyes darting back and forth between the flashing control panel and the never-ending void.

He’d been dreaming about his family. He knows them now. He has -- had? -- a mother and a father and a sister. He can't remember their names, but he remembers their faces, worn but warm, and always smiling. Always proud. Waiting.

_When you come back --_

But when would he ever? He can’t imagine it, can’t picture himself stepping back onto solid ground, onto a wasteland of a broiling planet, its dying star like an old bulb flaring above, and into the arms of people who have been waiting. Waiting for him.

Would he ever see another smiling face again?

As it turns out, he does. And it’s directly outside the window of his ship.

A terrifying scream, hoarse and dry, startles him out of his chair before he realizes it’s his own. He can’t remember the last time he’s heard his voice, but he hears it over and over, because he can’t stop screaming and swearing, because there’s a _man_ floating in the black expanse outside his ship, smiling serenely at him.

_Yuuri._

Yuuri freezes, eyes wide and body seized with terror. Slowly, a realization dawns on him, seeping through to his bones and warming him through. He’s heard this voice, the one that speaks so clearly in his mind. He’s seen this man before, though the burning silver of his star-dusted skin and flowing hair isn’t nearly as blinding, even in the endless void that surrounds them. He knows this man.

His shooting star.

> _5\. supernovae - oh, my dear, you know how to go out with a bang, don’t you? i promise you, your swan song will be seen across the ages._

His shooting star presses a hand -- a swirling mass of sparkling dust -- against the glass and speaks into his mind again.

_Yuuri Katsuki. I’ve been waiting for you for so long._

Yuuri swallows down the hard lump of hysteria in his throat, hands shaking where they ball into fists at his sides. “Waiting? Who… who are you?”

‘ _What_ are you’ would have been the more appropriate question, but he isn’t exactly thinking straight. There’s a man made of burning gas and rock floating outside of his ship, and he’s lost his entire goddamned mind. Should he have responded more politely? Should he invite him in?

All stupid ideas, but Yuuri’s so thoroughly lost in his thoughts that he jumps when another voice interrupts his inner one.

_I have many names. You may call me whatever you like, Yuuri._

“Why are you here?” Yuuri blurts, face flushing in embarrassment. How many stupid questions is he going to ask this man?

The star smiles at him again, looking so very fond that Yuuri’s cheeks burn hotter.

“This is where I dwell. I should be asking  _you_ that question. Except, of course, I already know the answer.”

As though this encounter could get any more surreal, the star  _winks_ at him, and Yuuri slumps back into his chair and runs a hand through his disheveled hair.

“What does that even mean?” A thought strikes him suddenly, so belated but so crucial that his world tips dizzyingly, his face going pale and his hands trembling hard. “Can you… can you help me? Can you save me?”

The man laughs, the blue sparks of his eyes twinkling with a secret. “That was my plan, Yuuri. I’ve been guiding your ship to me ever since its mainframe malfunctioned and left you and your crew for dead. And now you’re here.”

“Crew?” Yuuri whispers. “I have a crew?”

“Not anymore. They ejected themselves once they learned of their fate. Not all at once, of course, but bit by bit, over the years. All but you. I never cared much for the human lives I spectated, as they come and go in the blink of an eye. But you’re special, Yuuri Katsuki. You called to me.”

The words ‘crew’ and ‘years’ rattle his brain, leave him slack-jawed and dead inside. He’s been here for _how_ long? His crew had picked itself off one by one, and he can’t even remember their faces? His sanity wobbles dangerously, his vision warping, and the tears fall, drawn down by artificial gravity and the weight of the home and people he’d left behind. Why?

“ _Why?_ ” he chokes, not to the star but to himself.

He can’t see his shooting star’s face anymore, but he hears the sorrow in his mind.

“I’m going to save you, Yuuri Katsuki.”

A blinding explosion rocks the ship and rips the scream from his lungs.

> _6\. black holes / dwarf stars - settle down into oblivion, whether it be a catastrophic fall or the long, slow way down. consume, or shine. either way, this is the end._

Yuuri picks himself up from the floor of the ship and immediately wishes he hadn't.

The man made of stardust is no longer there at the window. At least, Yuuri  _thinks_ so. The whirlwind of silver in the distance looks familiar, but it’s scattered and shapeless and swirling around --

Yuuri’s knees give way, his hands coming down hard onto the control panel. Frantically, senselessly, he begins to slam buttons and pull at levers, because trying anything at all is better than doing nothing and letting it take him.

Foolish of him. It’s already begun sucking him in, drawing his ship as surely as it draws his terrified gaze.

“I’m going to die,” he whispers to himself, finally ceasing his panicked fumbling to stare numbly at the black hole.

And that  _must_ be what it is, so profoundly and relentlessly dark, despite the bright ring of energy surrounding it. Reality warps so hideously that Yuuri can do nothing but collapse in his seat once more, for the last time in his life, as he watches death twist and curve closer.

_I’m going to die._

Where is his life flashing before his eyes? He’d love to remember his planet, love to remember the names of the people that loved him. The names of the people who had perished along the way. But his mind, cold and vacant, repeats the same phrase, like a desperate prayer whispered in the night.

_I’m going to die._

_No, Yuuri,_ a voice speaks from within, from around him, from the depths of the aberration beginning to tear him apart, _you’re going home._  

Yuuri opens his mouth to shout a name he’s never heard of, but it’s swallowed into silence.

Then, nothing.

> _7\. the unknown - what lies untouched, unknown, unseen?_

His father’s -- _Toshiya’s_ \-- words ring in his skull as he sprints, panting and shaking, through the onsen they both operate alongside his mother and sister -- Hiroko and Mari.

_A really good-looking foreign guest._

Reality warps before him, terrifying and beautiful and full of hope and fear. Faces of guests flash past in a wild blur, but he inexplicably recalls each and every name as they fly by him.

Outside, the chill wind that follows freshly fallen snow wafts warmer waves from the steaming hot springs toward him. He can see them in the air, twisting and swirling like stardust, but his eyes are drawn to their center, relentlessly pulled by a gravity far stronger than the one that keeps his trembling legs rooted to the ground.

He speaks a name ( _again?_ ) and stutters, eyes widening in shock and awe. The man before him can’t be here, can’t be  _real_ , and yet he is, silvery and wavering in the simmering steam like a mirage.

“Why are you here?” Yuuri whispers again, at a complete loss as to why his idol and deity is lounging so serenely in his resort, in his  _home_.

Viktor is in his home, and when he rises and outstretches a hand -- across miles, across galaxies, across space and time itself -- Yuuri’s universe bursts into life.

_“Yuuri!”_


End file.
